The three-year project for which this renewal is requested has coordinated research, training and experimental service goals in successive and overlapping phases, as follows: 1) to identify and describe the beliefs and practices of folk healers in the Newark communities (spiritualists, spiritists, rootworkers, santeros, psychics, reader-advisors, evangelistic healers and others), 2) to assess the functions of these healers in the mental health of the community and in the realization of the goals of a CMHC, 3) to familiarize mental health personnel with these folk systems, 4) to determine the extent of involvement of psychiatric patients in them, and 5) develop strategies for clinical treatment and service delivery which maximize the benefits and minimize the risks to community mental health of the co-existence of alternative folk and professional systems of care. The first two years of the project have revealed significant numbers of such healers and large proportions of psychiatric patients involved in such folk healing systems. It has also shown that the folk practices are very revealing of subcultural styles, values, preferences, patterns of presenting complaints, and naturally-occurring patterns of help-seeking, giving, and receiving, all of which has significance for delivery of professional mental health services which transcends the practical issues of the concrete services provided. This Department and the CMDNJ/NJMS/CMHC are, therefore, now developing policies and guidelines for direct patient care and service delivery programming based on the results of this research. This two-year renewal application is submitted to permit 1) dissemination and implementation of these policies and guidelines throughout this facility, 2) extension of the research on patient populations to include samples of non-psychiatrically ill medical patients, 3) analysis of the significance of these beliefs and practices in the context of the total support systems of patients (psychiatric and nonpsychiatric) from the three major ethnic populations (Black, Hispano, White) and 4) dissemination of results to other facilities serving minority problems.